Tracy planned well ahead for Amazon

TRACY - The bedroom community of Tracy wants its own thriving job market to keep its residents home.

Jennie Rodriguez-Moore

TRACY - The bedroom community of Tracy wants its own thriving job market to keep its residents home.

A deal with Amazon, a high-tech company, shows progress in that direction, a business move that will bring about 1,000 jobs to the area and might have cities wondering how they too can hook such a giant.

Prologis Logistics, one of the largest developers of distribution centers worldwide, began construction in December, and Amazon plans to have the 1 million-square-foot fulfillment center operating by October, just in time for the holidays.

Company executives say the company's distribution centers pay about 30 percent more than traditional retail jobs. Full-time employees also are privy to stock grants and benefits that include health care.

"We are grateful to be members of the California business community and to employ so many hardworking and skilled Californians," said Mike Roth, vice president of Amazon's North American operations. "We are excited to be growing in the state and to be creating hundreds of full-time positions in Tracy."

The Tracy site will feature high-end robotics and technology; however, specific details of the operation have not been released.

City officials have been preparing to realize this project for all of 2012, keeping with their goal of becoming a business-friendly city that offers incentives and employs a streamlined entitlement process.

Additionally, they partnered with one of the world's largest distribution center developers that could help place the city on the map to attract other distributors.

"For other companies who want to get into that game, it's important to get with a developer and understand the needs of a company," said Mike Ammann, chief executive officer of San Joaquin Partnership, a nonprofit organization that assists companies to locate within the county.

Tracy has "been prepared to accept this type of development and has an entitlement process that is efficient, and timeliness is extremely important," Ammann said.

Tracy City Manager Leon Churchill said the city already had the city zoned for incoming distribution centers in anticipation of attracting them.

In that area, there are centers for Best Buy, a technology retailer, and Crate & Barrel, a distributor of home furniture and housewares, among others.

"Amazon is a step in that direction clearly," Churchill said.

There were a series of City Council actions that for the casual observer might have seemed insignificant but in the bigger picture laid the groundwork for economic development.

Much of it was standard practice, including changing the General Plan, increasing the height allowed for buildings and approving a new roadway system.

The city amended its sales tax rebate program to include industrial and high-tech operations.

For Amazon, that means up to 50 percent of sales tax generated will be rebated to the company.

"You have to do these things to be competitive," Churchill said. The return on investment is well worth it, he added.

Even with the incentives, the company's net gains are expected to pass the city ample sales tax revenue, Churchill said.

Amazon is not eligible for the rebate unless it creates 1,000 jobs and generates $100 million in annual sales.

"They will do that," Churchill said. "The benefits are going to be extraordinary," not just for Tracy but for the entire county, he said.

Tracy is one of three sites in the state chosen by Amazon, a Fortune 500 company based in Seattle.

The first opened in October in San Bernardino to fulfill orders in Southern California. There it brought 700 jobs.

Another center is under construction in Patterson, which is expected to be complete by the summer. Patterson and Tracy will fulfill orders for the central and northern parts of the state.

"This latest development in Tracy not only represents good jobs coming to the region but California's strong partnership with Amazon," said Kish Rajan, director of the Governor's Office of Business and Economic Development.